Monday, August 10, 2009

Snowball Block

I love snowball quilts. Like the bird quilt, or my very 1st quilt. I’ve had some questions about making snowball blocks, so I just thought I’d show you how easy it is. This is a great pattern for beginners, and I love it because the big blocks show off the fabric prints and it goes together really fast. Ok here goes:

Cut one 8” square and four 23/4” squares.

Draw a diagonal line on each small block.

Pin the small blocks to the 8” block, right sides together, and so the diagonal lines run perpendicular to the corners.

Sew along your drawn lines.

Ok here’s where you can cheat…..see that painters tape on the sewing machine? I don’t draw my diagonal lines onto my squares (I did here for tutorial sake). Instead, you can put a piece of painters tape on your machine so the edge lines up directly with your sewing line, then as long as you keep both corners along that tape as you sew, you will get a perfect line without drawing. It sounds confusing but it makes sense as your doing it. Maybe. :)

aaw! you're just few hours too late...I already cut 6" squares for a snowball. wish I would have waited to hear from you:) I will be cutting 2" squares for the corners. thanks for the tape idea..sounds great!

Great tutorial! That is exactly how my husband's aunt taught me for the quilt I made for our bed. Below is the post I wrote about it. http://blessingsoverflowing.blogspot.com/2009/01/sharing-some-quilts.html

That just gave me a great idea for using a charm pack and layer cake I have. Do you think the measurements would work out for that? They are 10" squares and 5" squares. I guess the charm square would be too small, so you could use the layer cake and trim down the charm square to a smaller square size. I'm going to try it and see how it works. I really like the idea someone left in comments of making triangles with your scraps too.I don't know how you can stand to sell something this cute!! Oh, and what is the fabric in your snowball example? It's really cute!

I love this blog. Here, from Brazil I've learned so many cool things and I'm so grateful for this because here I don't find people who do quilts, patchworks, etc and no patterns.Thank you for all shared here.Love.Cláudia.

I just made a quilt for my grand son and I am writing about it on my blog. I made it with the snowball pattern/block. Is it okay if I link to this post of yours for a "how to" to make the snowball block? Cherifabricandmemories.blogspot.com